“Let’s go see Markey,” said the security guard who opened the back door of his vehicle to let Tyler in.

Tyler was 17 years old and already halfway to nowhere.

Two counts of burglary, one count of possession of drug paraphernalia and threatening assault on his high school science teacher got him a free ticket to Camp Evergreen, a residential juvenile detention center.

With his mother in drug rehab and his father in a Texas prison, Tyler had been living with his third foster family until he stole money to buy drugs from a street meth lab.

His anger had burned his mind to ashes and frozen his heart into a block of ice. Every attempt by counselors to soften his soul had failed, and now he was labeled a high risk to become a lifetime criminal.

Upon arrival at what looked to him like school building, Tyler was led down a long hallway to a door with the nameplate, “Edward Markey.” He was escorted inside the room where there sat a middle-aged man behind a large desk.

“Hello, Tyler. I’m Mr. Markey.”

“So?”

That was the only word Tyler spoke in the next 10 minutes as Markey talked about ”something else they were going to try.”

“OK, Jim, you can take him, now,” said Markey.

“That was it?” thought Tyler, but as they reached the end of the hall, instead of going left to the exit, they turned right and stopped in front of a heavy wooden door which Jim opened and gently nudged Tyler inside.

With the door closed behind him and realizing he was standing alone, Tyler turned around. He made a face like a confused puppy. He counted 10 children about kindergarten age playing in a small room. He saw little boys and girls of different sizes and different shades of colored skin. They paid no attention to him and went about their coloring books, table games and bouncing balls.

Tyler thought it strange that there were no adults in the room with these little kids. He turned around and found the door to be locked. He looked around for the cameras that he knew would be recording his behavior.

“Hey,” shouted a little blond-haired boy who suddenly appeared at Tyler’s feet. “Can you help me build a house with these cards?”

“Get lost,” Tyler answered. He remembered when he was little and he would build a house of cards with the whole deck. Then his drunken father would stumble by and kick his foot right into the house of cards and laugh right through Tyler’s tears.

“Pleeese?” asked the boy.

“Get lost, kid!”

The boy frowned and walked slowly away. Tyler watched him slump to the floor and start to build a house with his cards. After just one level, the cards collapsed. The same thing happened three straight times.

Tyler stepped toward the boy. “You’re doing it all wrong. Give me the cards.”

Tyler sat on the floor and built the first level of the house. Then he helped the boy place the next level. When five levels were built, the other kids stopped what they were doing and came over to see the house of cards.

“Wow! That’s really cool,” said a little red-haired girl.

“How did you do that?” asked a freckle-faced boy.

The kids sat on the floor in a circle and watched Tyler and the little blond boy build more levels of the house. Suddenly, with one careless jerk of his hand, the boy hit a card and the whole house fell down. All the kids gasped. With a tear in his eye, the boy looked at Tyler, who opened his mouth to say something, but instead he took a deep breath.

“Don’t cry, kid,” said Tyler. “Let’s build it again.” The other kids cheered.

When the last card was placed and the house was finished, a blue-eyed little girl walked over to Tyler.

“Can you tell us a story?”

“I don’t know no stories,” said Tyler.

“Make one up then,” said Blue Eyes.

Suddenly the security guard entered the room. “Time we head back,” he said to Tyler.

“Will you come play with us again?” asked the blond boy.

“And tell us a story?” said Blue Eyes.

“Probably not,” he said looking down to see their sad faces.

As Jim led Tyler toward the exit, Markey stood outside his office.

“How did it go, Tyler?” he asked. “You want to come back?”

“They want me to tell them a story. I ain’t good at tellin’ stories.”

“Well, you got a whole week to think one up,” said Markey.

Tyler stared at him in an awkward moment of silence.

“I’ll write you down for 2 o’clock next Tuesday,” said Markey with a smile.

Later that afternoon, Tyler was playing basketball with Jason in the camp courtyard when he threw up a long hook shot that hit nothing but net.

“Nice rainbow,” remarked Jason.

“Rainbows,” thought Tyler. “I’ll tell them a story about rainbows.”

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.